


Light and Questions

by idiosyncraticWordsmith (literaryAspirant)



Series: Paradox-9 [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Existential Questions, First Light, Gen, My Guardian's first moments back in the world and his response to it, raising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 10:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20852315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryAspirant/pseuds/idiosyncraticWordsmith
Summary: Light.It brings a Guardian back to life.Life.Precious, limited, but the one before this one is forgotten.Questions.So many questions.The Raising of Paradox-9 from Burden of Light.





	Light and Questions

Light.

It came slowly at first, then all at once. Light, shapes, colors. Sounds. Sensations.

Life.

“Excellent, you’re back to your senses,” a voice chimed out, sweet and cold like starlight.

Senses… that’s what these were. Bearings… gather bearings… none to be gathered. Just wide empty field. Grass, grass everywhere. Night sky above. Stars shining brightly, twinkling past the atmosphere. Emptiness.

No, not quite emptiness. A light, floating in front and above. The voice came from it. In the dimness of the starlight and the mysterious floater, shadows cast, by wreckage, scrap, mostly reclaimed by the soil and the moss. A book, paper, decrepit but intact, hidden within protective casing. The letters inside jumbled as his eyes scanned them. Still valuable for later, he decided. Not emptiness; just almost emptiness.

“If you’re ready, we’ve got a lot of walking to do,” the light continued. “Unless we can find a ride. I can scan around to see if there isn’t a nearby ship, but I doubt there’s one anywhere within a few kilometers. There were some structures a while back that I noticed while coming this way that might have some decent prospects.”

“I… need answers,” Were his first words.

“Naturally. You’ve been dead for a long time now, I’m sure you’re probably pretty confused,” the light conceded.

“Dead?” He asked. He tried to think. Dead… death… when? How? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything. Words made sense to him, language was there, intelligence, yes… but knowledge, memory, gone.

“I’ll have to explain on the way,” the light said. “It isn’t safe out in the open. We’re far from Fallen territory, but who knows, they might send out scouts or rangers…”

Hours spent walking under the quietude of the night. One white light floating, two more jostling as legs carried them, and another light flaring with every syllable. He had to be told about what he had become - Guardian - but he had not forgotten what he was - Exo. Upon the recalling of that fact, he looked at his arm, peeling back the sleeve of the tunic fashioned for him in haste by the being calling itself his Ghost, knowing that something to sate his need for understand could be found there.

“Paradox-9,” he muttered to himself. His Ghost, in the midst of summarizing the centuries of history between death and undeath, paused.

“Hm?” The Ghost chimed.

“Paradox-9, it’s my name,” he said, his tone apologetic. “I… was afraid I had forgotten.”

“Guardians all have chronic memory loss regarding their life before being risen,” the Ghost explained. “I am told they all deal with it in a variety of ways. Hopefully you’ll develop a healthy coping mechanism for it.”

“Right… do you have a name? Or is naming not a Ghost thing?” Paradox asked.

“I know Ghosts with names,” the light said simply. “I don’t have one.”

“Hm… everyone should have a name, I think,” Paradox declared. “Do you have one in mind?”

“No,” was all the Ghost said. “As I was saying, the Fallen caste system is dominated, in terms of population, by Dregs, who have had their secondary arm set amputated, or ‘docked’, typically as punishment; the Dregs answer to Vandals, who still possess both sets-”

“Lexicon,” Paradox said suddenly in a fit of inspiration, catching the Ghost off-guard. A wealth of knowledge locked inside such a small thing; the word felt fitting. “I’ll call you Lexicon.”

“OK,” Lexicon said, “anyway, the Vandals possess both sets of arms-”

“How did you bring me back?” Paradox cut him off again. “I was dead a long time, you said. Everything about my machinery should have failed. But I feel fine.”

“I used the Traveler’s Light,” Lexicon answered.

Light. Slowly, then all at once. A miracle, yet for Lexicon it was a simple act.

“What  _ is  _ Light?” Paradox inquired.

“It is Light,” was all Lexicon said. “Starlight, sunlight, the light of the universe, that shines in every living being that doesn’t embrace the Darkness.”

“And what is the Darkness?” Paradox asked.

“Everything that is not the Light,” Lexicon simply stated. It was not a judgmental tone that Lexicon adopted, but a plain one; not of the impatient professor, but the impartial educator, interested only in the dispensing of knowledge to those who sought it out. But for Paradox, the answers were insufficient, and no matter the prodding or the phrasing, nothing Lexicon offered him was truly satisfying. He was a Lexicon, but he wasn’t omniscient. Paradox forgave him for that.

But questions still needed answering. Who was he? What did it mean to be a Guardian? What did it mean to be Paradox-9? What did it mean to be dead? Why serve the Light and not the Dark? What was the Dark, how did it function, what was its goal? What was the Traveler, really, and what was its motivation?

Questions, questions, questions, coming slowly, and then all at once, exploding into Paradox’s mind relentlessly. Was he even real if he had no history, no self? How could he define himself? ‘Guardian’ was insufficient. ‘Exo’ was a step forward. There was history there, you had to  _ become  _ Exo. Why was he an Exo? Who was he before being an Exo? And the book, the strange book, its letters familiar and wrong, whispering to him, promising truths and secrets barred to him by time and entropy and the shadow of forgetfulness - it was a lexicon of questions by itself. One he needed to fill with answers.

A horrid, terrible, awful, bad, sinful, heretical, blasphemous, heinous, treasonous, disgusting, disturbing question entered his head.

What if he couldn’t find the answers?

He locked that question away and vowed never to answer it.


End file.
